Reading Part B can seem particularly daunting after the quick pace of Part A. Many students do well in Part A because they can quickly match the relevant word(s) to fill in each gap. However, many of these same students struggle to complete Part B as it requires a much deeper level of reading comprehension.

Here I will provide two tips to improve your ability to pick the correct answers in Part B, and hone your approach to answering each question.

• Read the questions before the text. Most of the multiple choice questions in Part B refer to one particular paragraph in which the answer is located. For this reason it is better to get straight to reading the questions and then reading the relevant paragraph only. This way you are not wasting time by reading the entire piece provided, then having to go back and re-read each paragraph as dictated by each question
• Once you have read the relevant paragraph look at the multiple choice answers to pick the correct answer. Many students make the mistake of reading the question and then reading the multiple choice answers immediately BEFORE reading the relevant paragraph. This is problematic sometimes because you may end up putting your own bias into the interpretation of the paragraph because your own prior knowledge or opinion on the topic has led you to have a pre-formed notion about which answer that you have read is most correct.

Hope this was helpful! Good luck!

Nadishi Athulathmudali, OET Teacher